Hoshi no Samidare

College student Yuuhi Amamiya's monotonous life is turned upside down with the appearance of Sir Noi Crezant, a talking lizard claiming to be a knight of justice. Crezant elaborates that the world is in peril—threatened by the mage Animus who wishes to annihilate it with his Biscuit Hammer, an enormous structure suspended in Earth's orbit. As the newly appointed Lizard Knight, Yuuhi must fight alongside other Beast Knights to protect the princess and save the planet from destruction.

Unimpressed by the prospect of risking his life, Yuuhi continues his day as usual—until a golem created by Animus suddenly confronts him. Yuuhi is instantly overpowered, but his neighbor, Princess Samidare Asahina, luckily rescues him. To his surprise, Samidare's intention starkly differs from Crezant's; instead of saving the world, she aims to destroy it with her own hands. Captivated by her firm ambition, Yuuhi resolves to become stronger and help Samidare realize her goal.

As the pair continues to fight against Animus' golems, Yuuhi finds himself gradually gaining an interest in life—but the chains of his past trauma may restrain him from progressing further.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Amamiya, Yuuhi Main

Enoki, Junya Japanese

Asahina, Samidare Main

Oozora, Naomi Japanese

Shinonome, Hangetsu Supporting

Iwase, Shuuhei Japanese

Crezant, Noi Supporting

Tsuda, Kenjirou Japanese

Shinonome, Mikazuki Supporting

Satou, Gen Japanese

Animus Supporting

Tachibana, Tatsumaru Japanese

Akane, Taiyou Supporting

Tamura, Mutsumi Japanese

Shimaki, Hyou Supporting

Matsuoka, Yoshitsugu Japanese

Akitani, Inachika Supporting

Yamaji, Kazuhiro Japanese

Kusakabe, Tarou Supporting

Toki, Shunichi Japanese

Oowada, Tomoyuki Producer

Aoi, Hiroyuki Producer

Katagiri, Tomoya Producer

Kawana, Yuuta Producer

Reviews

Dec 28, 2022

Dnel96

Recommended

A tale as old as time: a MAL lurker writing their first review because an anime that they liked has a low MAL rating. However, I am going to attempt to be as succinct as possible. This is a 2 minute read. Look for a more in-depth review elsewhere.

TLDR: 8/10, worth watching if you like slow-paced action/adventure anime.
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Story: fairly unique plot that develops slowly. Good if you're looking for something different, but not super complex. Good mix of happy and sad moments. No glaring plot holes or overt cringe.

Animation: the fight scenes are choppy and uncoordinated. Other than that, its totally average. It is still ... watchable.

Characters: Very solid character development, both from the MC and supporting cast. Episodes tend to focus on a few characters at a time and delve into their backstories. The ending is conclusive.

Sound: Japanese voice acting appropriate for emotional/climactic moments. Music doesn't add or detract.

Enjoyment: if you've watched the classic action-adventure anime already and want to watch something that is different from those shows, this is a very solid watch. It isn't perfect, but greatly outperforms its MAL rating.
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Comparison: my best guess is World Trigger or Rising of the Shield Hero, but there really isn't anything similar to this anime. If you'd rather watch something fast-paced instead, both Drifters or Inuyashiki are fast-paced and have unique plots.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Feb 13, 2023

ddrcrono

Mixed Feelings

As many of you already know, Hoshi no Samidare's anime adaption has been very poorly received, disappointing manga fans around the world. While I understand and empathize with this perspective, I am going to provide a perspective and critique from the point of view of someone who's only watched the anime and knows nothing about the manga. (No spoilers in this review)

To start with, I'll address the most obvious negative issue:

Hoshi no Samidare has some of the worst animation I've seen in years, making some of the most serious action scenes border on comically bad, often breaking your suspension of disbelief, interfering with not only ... the action but the storytelling as well.

That said, beyond the terrible animation there's the core of an interesting world with an engaging story, likable characters and some interesting concepts. While the core style of "People with super powers fight bad guy to save the world," is certainly not unique, the delivery of the story as a whole uses enough unique characteristics that it doesn't ever feel like "Oh it's just this other show with a couple of details changed." A few of the things I really liked:

- The chemistry between the main characters, particularly in the earlier parts of the story.

- There's a broad range of ages in the hero group and it makes for a more interesting dynamic than you get from the typical "all teens/early 20s" casts that are all too common.

- In an era of overpowered isekai characters, the cast of Hoshi no Samidare's powers feel, somehow refreshingly, underwhelming. This creates a lot more suspense around battles, where you find yourself genuinely wondering if everyone's going to make it through alive.

- Lastly, while not entirely unique to this series, I felt that there was a lot of thought and care put into the characters and their relationships with each other. While not the depth you'd find in a character-driven drama, it gives more than you'd expect from your average saving-the-world anime.

If I were to offer a critique about the storytelling, it's that, while the main story is relatively easy to follow and flows well enough, it feels like some of its sub-threads are neglected, left incomplete, or hastily concluded. Overall it feels like there are quite a few cases where there's an interesting series of interactions between characters and they aren't followed through with in a way that makes the best use of their potential. Even some of the chemistry between the main characters, which is a pretty central part of the story in the beginning, feels a bit stifled if not overwhelmed by the weight of all of the other threads the show is trying to keep up with.

In conclusion, would I recommend Hoshi no Samidare? Only if you can say yes to both of these:

- Like me, you're not really a manga reader. (If you are, the near-universal consensus is that its manga is much better, so go read it).
- This is the sort of show you like and your interest has been piqued enough by this review that you're willing to give it a chance despite its shortcomings.

Overall, while this was, by far not the best anime I've watched, I genuinely enjoyed Hoshi no Samidare despite its shortcomings.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Dec 23, 2022

Mcsuper

Not Recommended

Truly a missed opportunity. A beloved manga finally got an anime adaptation, and while the story was genuinely very solid, the show was hampered by one of the poorest productions this year, with soulless visuals and terrible CG. With even average production, I believe this could have been one of my favourites of the year, and while animation isn’t the thing I find most important when watching something, when it’s abhorrently bad, it ruins the whole experience.

STORY:

What frustrated me the most when I was watching this was that the plot was very decent, but because of the poor production, it was hard to find anything ... really meaningful, even if there were some genuinely good moments here, especially in the second half. The story was quite simple, with Amamiya Yuuhi, a very despondent boy, meeting Asahina Samidare, a girl with hopes to destroy the world. Each character in the story other than Samidare has a creature accompanying them, which made for interesting interactions. There was a lot of potential here, just wasted because of the animation.

ART:

Need I say more? The action animation was laughable and soulless, with the CG being terribly done. It was truly the bare minimum of efforts.

MUSIC:

Surprisingly, I did find the music direction to be rather solid, with some of the music being quite catchy during the fights. The second opening was also quite standout.

CHARACTERS:

The cast was big and not many of the characters were developed well other than the main characters. Yuuhi was very weak to start, but with his experiences throughout the series along with the people he met supporting him, he became one of the strongest characters in the end. There was also some interesting stories about his family, which could have been fleshed out more, but to be honest, most of the characters needed more development. Samidare could have been another good character, but this adaptation just rushed things, so some of her impactful moments didn’t hit like they could have.

Some of the supporting cast had quite a few good moments as well, especially the younger kids, who I really grew to like in the second half.

ENJOYMENT:

I was sleeping during the first half, and I did minimally enjoy the second half of the story.

THEMATIC EXECUTION:

With the soulless production, nothing really impacted me like it could have. The sad parts did absolutely nothing for me, and some of the other themes that were explored could have been so much better. Even the comedy just felt cringe. Such a shame.

OVERALL:

I feel like I’m repeating myself over and over, but this was such an opportunity wasted. There was something potentially good here, but it just got ruined by the ugliness of the production. Once in a while, a manga gets butchered like this, and it’s always sad when it happens.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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	Poll: Hoshi no Samidare Episode 6 Discussion Stark700 - Aug 12, 2022	48 replies	by RGreatDanton »» May 25, 3:43 AM
	Poll: Hoshi no Samidare Episode 5 Discussion Stark700 - Aug 5, 2022	43 replies	by RGreatDanton »» May 25, 3:30 AM
	Poll: Hoshi no Samidare Episode 4 Discussion Stark700 - Jul 29, 2022	30 replies	by RGreatDanton »» May 25, 3:14 AM
	Poll: Hoshi no Samidare Episode 3 Discussion Stark700 - Jul 22, 2022	39 replies	by RGreatDanton »» May 24, 11:27 PM
	Poll: Hoshi no Samidare Episode 2 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Jul 15, 2022	53 replies	by RGreatDanton »» May 24, 11:14 PM